Section of Ruined Church,
San Juan Capistrano
Robert Winter, 2003 

Acrylic on Sheet Canvas
16" x 20"

Giclee Print:   $350
On Sheet Canvas, Unframed

Framed Original:  Not for Sale

Artist's Notes

Here’s another abandoned and apparently lifeless thing that still has a distinctive presence about it.

The Great Stone Church at the Mission San Juan Capistrano collapsed in an earthquake not long after it was built, and it’s been a ruin ever since.  But it hasn't lost its character.

Something about having been broken adds immeasurably to the tactile quality of the otherwise smooth-cut stone.  And there’s a delicious interplay play of light and shadow on its surfaces—one minute cool as a Gothic cathedral, the next as warmly sun-baked as a Hopi adobe.

For whatever reasons, I find something more transcendent in this battered open-air fragment than in most of the intact churches I've seen.

 

© COPYRIGHT 2003 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.